Birthday Luck

    Low Moon Tides, Rocks, Mud Flats, Bait, and a few Fish.  Could there be a better way to spend your birth day????   Well, JanD.  was able to spend his birthday among the Rocks, Mud Flats, and Fish.   My gift, Flies, the gift that keeps giving.   I presented him with three deceivers and a crab fly when i picked him up this morning.   We loaded up his gear and headed for the ramp.

    The tide was dead low when we arrived at the marina.  I had to back all the way down the ramp to float the boat off the trailer.  It was hard to launch, because there was a construction barge tied up along side the ramp, however, it is not our first time launching a boat.  With in a few minutes we were fishing.   We noticed there was a lot of bait on the surface everywhere we went.  What we did not notice any signs of fish.  For those of you that don't know striped bass fishing on the east coast if a very fickle thing.  The striped bass and bluefish are migratory by nature, and often put on thousands of miles per year doing what they do.  How does this fit into the morning's fishing?  Simple, you can't catch whats not there.  The simple fix to the lack of fish problem was to move.  The "X-Factor" was i left the dock with 3 gallons of gas in the boat.  I figured we were going to slay fish amongst the rocks outside the marina, which did not happen.  We put our heads together and decided to head to a near by harbor, which had a gas dock.

    15 minutes later we entered the harbor and went right for a rock pile.  15 minutes after that we were still fishless!  I was blaming Jan and his birthday on the full moon for everything saying "your birthday sucks".  Jan and I were getting worried.  I was throwing a olive and white half and half while Jan was working a white 7 inch Slug-Go.  We had the the water covered, but the place was an aquatic desert.  Then....someone flipped the light switch.  I don't know if we stumbled upon these fish or they were there all along and were waiting for the tide to start flooding.  What i do know is we got into a fast and furious flurry of activity.  4 casts with Slug-Go's and we landed 3 fish.  Jan must have used his birthday luck up on a nice 30 inch fish.  He also go a 24 inch fish while i landed a sub-legal 27 inch Striper.  On the next drift we ended up in very shallow water and actually saw a school of blue come on to the flat in search of something to eat.  Jan tossed the crab fly i made and one and got hit.  The Bluefish cut through the mono tippet instantly and his gifted fly was gone, and so were the fish.  It was cool to watch them come into 2 feet of water on the hunt and i think we can do it again tomorrow.  We made it back to the ramp with gas to spare and our pride.